Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era.

Excerpt

"Medical leadership brought cohesion out of chaos, discipline out of division, and dictation out of dissent." These closing lines mirror the paradox in the title of this book by a professor of history who is a long-time student of the American Medical Association (AMA). His theme is that while the medical profession strove for improvement of its own quality and the health of the American people, it also gathered social and political strength that redounded on its own interest.

Written in an easy, flowing style, the book opens with a description of the parlous state of American medicine at the